Game Arts Option - 3D Digital Design BFA
Program Overview
Game Arts Option - 3D Digital Design BFA
Overview
The game arts design degree allows you to pursue creative interests in game arts, from designing virtual elements and lighting to animated characters and backgrounds. An innovative and adaptive curriculum prepares you for a career in the emergent fields associated with games culture while encouraging critical analysis of these fields through the dynamic courses offered throughout RIT.
Why Study the Game Arts Design Degree at RIT?
- Game Arts Lecturers: Game arts professionals are invited to RIT to lead lectures, discussions, and demos that give you an informed industry perspective.
- Industry Networking: Take part in Creative Industry Day, which allows you to connect with professionals in your field of study.
- Strong Career Paths: Graduates have been hired by leading studios, such as Insomniac Games and Sony Interactive Entertainment, to work on games for all platforms.
- STEM-OPT Visa Eligible: The STEM Optional Practical Training (OPT) program allows full-time, on-campus international students on an F-1 student visa to stay and work in the U.S. for up to three years after graduation.
RIT’s Game Arts Design Degree
The game arts degree offers an innovative and adaptive curriculum that prepares you for a career in emergent fields associated with games culture, exposing you to the advanced technologies, interactive interfaces, and explorative processing necessary in game arts. While technologies constantly change, this option focuses on teaching lifelong skills of critical and design thinking and collaboration through a game arts focus.
In your 3D game design courses, you will explore:
- 3D modeling
- Sculpting
- Lighting
- Materials
- Effects
- Real-time game engines
- AR, VR, and XR
- Pre-visualization
- Virtual production
Access to Invaluable Digital Design Industry Technology and Resources
RIT provides game art design majors with resources and facilities where they can get hands-on experience with real-world industry technology.
- MAGIC Spell Studios, a state-of-the-art media production facility, is a creative hub where artists and programmers work together to research and develop imaginative game projects.
- Computer labs in the College of Art and Design will provide you with access to professional-level 3D and animation software.
- RIT’s virtual production curriculum is driven by the use of large LED walls installed in MAGIC Spell Studios and made possible with support from an Epic Games grant.
- The Strong National Museum of Play, the world’s largest collection of historical materials related to play, is located 15 minutes from campus.
Game Arts Degree Careers
You will graduate well-positioned to pursue careers in the game arts industry. Alumni and faculty are the creative minds behind the environments, characters, and objects in games you know and love. Graduates have been hired by leading studios to work on games for all platforms. Hiring partners include Bethesda, Insomniac Games, Sony Interactive Entertainment, and Workinman Interactive.
Careers and Experiential Learning
Cooperative Education and Internships
What’s different about an RIT education? It’s the career experience you gain by completing cooperative education and internships with top companies in every single industry. You’ll earn more than a degree. You’ll gain real-world career experience that sets you apart.
Co-ops and internships take your knowledge and turn it into know-how. Your art and design co-ops will provide hands-on experience that enables you to apply your artistic capabilities in dynamic professional settings while you make valuable connections between classwork and real-world applications.
Students in the game arts option are strongly encouraged to complete a cooperative education or internship experience.
Creative Industry Days
Connect with Design Industry Leaders
RIT’s Office of Career Services and Cooperative Education hosts Creative Industry Days, which connects students majoring in art, design, film and animation, photography, and select computing majors with companies, organizations, creative agencies, design firms, and more. Creative Industry Days are a series of events that allow you to network with company representatives and interview directly for open co-op and full-time employment positions.
Featured Work and Profiles
- Building a Virtual Production Curriculum
Supported by MegaGrant from Epic Games, MAGIC Spell Studios has brought groundbreaking research and filmmaking techniques to RIT.
- 3D Digital Design Reel
A compilation of student work from the last few years.
- Alumni Spotlight: Marty Pietras '17
As a 3D material artist for Sony, Pietras textures environments for PlayStation titles — including "The Last Of Us Part II."
- Bringing Board Games to Life
It's game night! For the 2025 installment of the RIT 3D digital design program's annual 100 Hour Project, the theme was virtual game boards. The 100 Hour Project annually challenges teams of students...
- 100 Hour Project - Into the Wormhole
RIT's 3D digital design program went into the wormhole with 12 teams of students designing their own corner of spacetime. The project was for the program's 100 Hour Project, an annual community...
- School of Design Reel
Samples of work from each BFA program in RIT's School of Design — 3D digital design, graphic design, industrial design, interior design and new media design.
Admissions and Financial Aid
This program is STEM designated when studying on campus and full time.
This option is part of the 3D digital design BFA. Please visit the degree program page for admission requirements.
Financial Aid and Scholarships
100% of all incoming first-year and transfer students receive aid.
RIT’s personalized and comprehensive financial aid program includes scholarships, grants, loans, and campus employment programs. When all these are put to work, your actual cost may be much lower than the published estimated cost of attendance.
Faculty
- Gary Jacobs - Associate Professor
- Aaron Powell - Visiting Lecturer
- Jennifer Indovina - Lecturer
All Program Faculty
Facilities
- MAGIC Spell Studios
- 3D Digital Design Seminar Room
- 3D Computer Lab
View Program Facilities
Related News
- April 29, 2025 - Student brings photographic precision to 3D visual effects
- March 21, 2024 - Innovation unleashed: students forge transdisciplinary projects at RIT's a2ru summit
- February 15, 2024 - Inside the making of 'That Damn Goat,' RIT's latest video game
More Program News
Program Outline
The game arts option focuses on the creation of visual elements and assets for a wide range of game platforms. The option allows you to pursue creative interests in game arts, from designing virtual elements and lighting to animated characters and backgrounds. An innovative and adaptive curriculum prepares you for a career in the emergent fields associated with games culture while encouraging critical analysis of these fields through the dynamic general elective courses offered throughout RIT. This option is part of the 3D digital design BFA degree.
You will be exposed to the advanced technologies, interactive interfaces, and explorative processing necessary in game arts. You will explore 3D modeling, sculpting, lighting, materials, effects, real-time game engines, AR, VR, and XR, pre-visualization, and virtual production–a technique that blends visual effects, film, and game technologies, all with a tighter focus on game pipelines. While technologies constantly change, this option focuses on teaching lifelong skills of critical and design thinking and collaboration through a game arts focus.
In this option, you will have opportunities to regularly collaborate with game developers. This option complements RIT’s nationally recognized game design and development BS, ranked 4th nationally among “Top 50 Game Design Programs: Undergraduate Category” (2022), offered by the Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences. MAGIC Spell Studios, the university’s state-of-the-art media production facility, is a creative hub where artists and programmers frequently work together on imaginative game projects, some of which have been published. MAGIC also invites students to engage in research to discover new possibilities in games and digital media.
You will graduate well positioned to pursue careers in the game arts industry. Alumni and faculty are the creative minds behind the environments, characters, and objects in games you know and love. Graduates have been hired by leading studios to work on games for all platforms. Hiring partners include Bethesda, Insomniac Games, Sony Interactive Entertainment, and Workinman Interactive.
Invaluable Resources
Whether it's MAGIC Spell Studios or one of the many computer labs in the College of Art and Design, you will have access to professional-level 3D and animation software to build skills and execute projects. Further, the array of opportunities at RIT aligns with the game industry’s convergence of many different fields. Programs at the university are adaptive and prepare you for lifelong learning, creativity, critical thinking, and skills in future technologies such as VR/AR/MR and virtual production, the revolutionary filmmaking technique combining computer-generated graphics, 3D art, motion capture, and real-time rendering via game engines. RIT, with support from an Epic Games grant, built a virtual production curriculum that is driven by the use of large LED walls installed in MAGIC Spell Studios.
RIT is also positioned in a city with first-hand grounding in the history of games. The Strong National Museum of Play, the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of historical materials related to play, is located 15 minutes from campus in downtown Rochester. It holds didactic materials that can help you study and understand the origin of games, and their many forms, while you help create the future of the industry.
Industry Grade Facilities
RIT’s relationships with industry facilitate unique explorations for students. Game arts professionals are also invited to RIT to lead lectures, discussions, and demos that give you added perspective of the industry.
Careers and Experiential Learning
Cooperative Education and Internships
What’s different about an RIT education? It’s the career experience you gain by completing cooperative education and internships with top companies in every single industry. You’ll earn more than a degree. You’ll gain real-world career experience that sets you apart.
Co-ops and internships take your knowledge and turn it into know-how. Your art and design co-ops will provide hands-on experience that enables you to apply your artistic capabilities in dynamic professional settings while you make valuable connections between classwork and real-world applications.
Students in the game arts option are strongly encouraged to complete a cooperative education or internship experience.
